University of Virginia Library

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY—PHILOSOPHER OF THE SEAS.

In the lineage of Matthew Fontaine Maury there was commingled
a double strain of the conscientious Huguenot blood with meritorious
Virginia springs. He was seventh in descent from John de la Fontaine,
born about 1500 in the province of Maine, near the borders of
Normandy; commissioned in the household of Francis I., of France;
served continuously during the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., and
until the second year of Charles IX., when he resigned; martyred as
a Protestant in 1563. His grandson, Rev. James Fontaine, pastor of
the United Churches of Vaux and Royan; born in 1658, married A. E.
Boursiquot; fled to Great Britain from religious persecution. His
daughter, Mary Anne, born in Taunton, England, 1690, married in
Dublin, Ireland, in 1716, Matthew Maury, a Huguenot refugee (died
in 1752), and they emigrated to Virginia in 1718. Their son, Rev.
James Maury, born 1717, died 1767, a learned and beloved minister
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, married Elizabeth Walker, of estimable
Virginia lineage. Their son, Richard Maury, married Diana
Minor, of worthy descent. They had issue nine children, of whom the
seventh, and the third son, was the subject of this sketch, Matthew
Fontaine, born 16th of January, 1806, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
His father removed to Tennessee in young Matthew's fourth
year, and established himself near Nashville. In his sixteenth year
young Maury entered Harpeth Academy. In 1825 he was appointed
Midshipman in the United States Navy, making his first cruise in the
frigate Brandywine, on the coast of Europe and in the Mediterranean.
The voyage across the Atlantic was rendered memorable by tempestuous
weather and the presence of General Lafayette, a return passenger
to France. In 1826 Maury was transferred to the sloop of war
Vincennes, for a cruise around the world. Having passed with credit
the usual examination, he was appointed, in 1831, Master of the sloop
of war Falmouth, then fitting out for the Pacific, but was soon transferred
to the schooner Dolphin, serving as acting First Lieutenant,
until again transferred to the frigate Potomac, in which he returned
to the United States in 1834. He then published his first work,
Maury's Navigation, which was adopted as a text-book in the navy.
He was now selected as astronomer, and offered the appointment of
hydrographer to the exploring expedition to the South Seas, under
the command of Lieutenant Wilkes, but declined these positions. In
1837 he was promoted to the grade of Lieutenant, and not long afterwards
met with the painful accident by which he was lamed for
life. For several years, unable to perform the active duties of his
profession, he devoted his time to mental culture, to the improvement
of the navy, and to other matters of national concern. His views,
forcibly stated, were published first and mainly in the Southern Literary
Messenger, over the nom de plume of Harry Bluff, and under the
general caption of "Scraps from the Lucky Bag." To the influence of

these essays has been justly ascribed the great reforms then made in
the navy, as well as the establishment of a naval academy. He also
advocated the establishment of a navy yard at Memphis, Tennessee,
which was done by act of Congress. Under his directions were made,
at that point, by Lieutenant Marr, the first series of observations upon
the flow of the Mississippi. He proposed a system of observations
which would enable the observers to give information, by telegraph,
as to the state of the river and its tributaries. He advocated the enlargement
of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, that vessels of war
might pass between the gulf and the lakes. He suggested to Congress
efficacious plans for the disposition of the drowned government lands
along the Mississippi. In the interest of commerce, he brought forward
and successfully advocated the "warehousing system."

In 1842 he was appointed Superintendent of the Depot of Charts and
Instruments, at Washington. Up to this time the field in which
Maury labored was limited to his own country. Placed in a position
which afforded the means necessary to the full employment of his
powers, he speedily developed the plans which he had previously
cherished and so earnestly advocated. The simple Depot for Charts
and Instruments was transformed into an Observatory. Surrounded
by such men as Fergusson, Walker, Hubbard, Coffin, Keith, and other
faithful workers, whom he inspired with his own enthusiasm, he made
the Naval Observatory national in its importance and relations to the
astronomical world. This accomplished, he added to those labors of
the astronomer, fruitful of results for future years, the task of unraveling
the winds and currents of the ocean, and collected from the logbooks
of ships of war long stored in the government offices, and from
all other accessible sources, the material suited to his purpose. By
numerous assistants, it was tabulated, and by him discussed, thus
yielding for the guidance of the mariner on a single route, the combined
experience of thousands. Yet Maury's first chart to navigators,
with his new route, which he was wont to afterwards delightedly call
his "Fair Way to Rio," was as first doubted and declined as being
opposite to all previous tending, but its accuracy being triumphantly
demonstrated by Captain Jackson, commanding the W. H. D. C.
Wright, of Baltimore, the maratime world hastened to acknowledge
the beneficence conferred, and to contribute aid to the speedy and
complete application of Maury's system to all seas.

Maury also instituted the system of deep-sea sounding, rendering
easy of accomplishment all operations of that character since undertaken,
and leading directly to the establishment of telegraphic communication
between the continents by cable, on the bed of the ocean.
In these labors he was effectively assisted by Colonel John M. Brooke
(now a professor in the Virginia Military Institute), then on duty in
the Naval Observatory, and whose deep-sea sounding apparatus first
brought up specimens, whilst it fathomed the depths of the ocean.

But to these immediately practical and beneficial results there was
something to be added. The investigations, of which they were the
first fruits, presented materials for a work to make clear to landsmen
as well as mariners, the wonderful mechanism of the sea, with its currents
and its atmosphere, "The Physical Geography of the Sea,"
which, translated into various languages, is an enduring monument
to the genius and usefulness of its author. By Humboldt, Maury was
declared to be the founder of a new and important science. The
principal powers of Europe recognized the value of his services to
mankind. France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal,
Sweden, Sardinia, Holland, Bremen, and the Papal States, bestowed
orders of knighthood and other honors. The Academies of
Science of Paris, Berlin, Brussels, St. Petersburg and Mexico conferred
the honor of membership.

When Virginia, seceding from the Union, called upon her sons, he
promptly resigned from the Federal Navy to take part in the defense
of his native State, declining, from a sense of duty, highly honorable
positions, which he was invited to fill in Russia and France severally.
He was selected as one of the Council of Three appointed by the Governor
of Virginia in the important crisis, and so served until its army
and navy were incorporated with those of the Confederacy, when he
was sent abroad by the Southern Government, invested with suitable
powers of provision for its material naval wants. This trust he duly
filled until the close of the war.

Then, in anticipation of a large emigration from the Southern States
to Mexico, with the view of aiding his countrymen there, he went
thither. He was cordially received by the Emperor Maximilian, who
appointed him to a place in his Cabinet. Thence he was sent on a
special mission to Europe. The revolution terminating his relations with
Mexico, he was left in straitened circumstances, when he resumed,
as a means of support, his scientific and literary labors. He made experimental
researches in new application of electricity, in which he
was eminently successful, and prepared his Manual of Geography,
subsequently published in America. During this period the University
of Cambridge conferred on him the degree of LL.D.; and the
Emperor of the French invited him to the superintendency of the
Imperial Observatory at Paris. He patriotically preferred to accept
the chair of Physics in the Virginia Military Institute. Whilst serving
here, he prepared his latest work, the Physical Survey of Virginia.

Stricken with a gastric complaint in October, 1872, he died at Lexington,
Virginia, February 1, 1873. His remains rest beneath a
monument of native James river granite in Hollywood Cemetery, near
Richmond. Commodore Maury married in early life, Anne, daughter
of Dabney and Elizabeth Herndon, of Fredericksburg, Virginia (the
sister of a devotedly heroic brotherhood). Their issue was five
daughters and three sons.